168 MILLION VIEWERS WATCH THE OLYMPICS ON THE NETWORKS OF NBC UNIVERSAL THROUGH TUESDAY

168 MILLION VIEWERS WATCH THE OLYMPICS ON THE NETWORKS OF NBC UNIVERSAL THROUGH TUESDAY

53 Million Watch U.S. Earn First Ice Dancing Medal in 30 Years

NBC's Monday Primetime Broadcast Draws 13.6 HH Rating, Dominates in Primetime

TORINO, Italy - Feb. 21, 2006 - 168.3 million total viewers have watched the Olympics on the networks of NBC Universal through Monday night, pacing just one percent behind this same point during the Salt Lake Games (170.8 million). 53 million total, unduplicated viewers watched NBC's coverage of the Torino Games last night, according to Nielsen Media fast national ratings, which featured the ice dancing gold medal final, highlighted by Tatyana Navka and Roman Kostomarov winning the gold for Russia and U.S. pair Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto skating to a silver medal, the U.S.'s first medal in that sport in 30 years.

NBC CONTINUES PRIMETIME DOMINANCE: Last night's coverage of the Torino Winter Olympics on NBC rated a 13.6/21 and delivered an average of 22.5 million viewers (8:00 p.m.-11:39 p.m. ET/PT). NBC's primetime portion (8-11 p.m. ET/PT, 13.5/21) once again claimed the night, outrating Fox for the night by 61 percent in households (8.4) and 62 percent in total viewers (13.9M) and outrating CBS and ABC combined in both households and viewer delivery (CBS, 6.7/10.2M; ABC, 6.1/8.9M).

NBC NEARLY DOUBLES OVER NORMAL MONDAY NIGHT RATING: NBC's primetime household rating (13.5, 8-11 p.m. ET/PT) nearly doubled its normal Monday night rating (7.1, +90%) and more than doubled its average Monday viewer delivery (22.5M v. 10.7M, +110%). NBC also nearly doubled its usual Monday primetime A18-49 delivery (6.8 vs. 3.6, +89%).

TORINO OLYMPICS ON CABLE REACHES ALMOST 56 MILLION VIEWERS: Through Monday, coverage of the Torino Games has reached 55.8 million total, unduplicated viewers on the cable networks of NBCU, more than 25 percent higher than the comparable time periods last year (44.5 million). CNBC's curling coverage, 5-8 p.m. ET weekdays following "Closing Bell," is averaging a 0.53 household rating/832,000 viewers, 231 percent higher than the time period in pre-Olympic first quarter.

THE OLYMPICS IN PRIMETIME ON NBC

Monday Torino to Date through Monday, Feb. 20
HH Rating 13.6/21 12.3/19
A18-49 6.8 6.3
Average Viewers 22.5 20.6
Total Unduplicated 53 million 168 million

The networks of NBC Universal, NBC, USA, MSNBC, CNBC, NBC HD and Universal HD is providing more than 418 total hours of coverage - including the most live coverage - across the most platforms of any Winter Olympics in history of the XX Olympic Winter Games from Torino, Italy, Feb. 10-26.